“The dead and the unborn are as much members of society as the living. To dishonor the dead is to reject the relation of obligation between generations.”
Roger Scruton
On Rousseau
Let us proceed to tease out some implications here;
1.) Of course this is nothing but the cream that rises to the surface from the doctrine called “Kinism,” which is itself merely Christianity as applied to social order functioning. There is not only a relation between kin who are living but also a relation between kin living, kin who have gone before and kin who are yet unborn. Without a honored continuity across the generations man becomes hyper-individualized with no sense of belonging to something greater than himself.
2.) Those who deny this truism are violators of the fifth commandment as Scruton’s second sentence clearly communicates. One simply can not deny Kinism and claim Christ.
3.) The only place left to go if one denies Scruton’s channeling of Edmund Burke is some form of cosmopolitanism. The eschew this wisdom is to embrace the life of the rootless nomad, and the wandering Jew.
4.) Without this principle what evolves is an ugly generational selfishness embraced by each succeeding generation. Without this principle living is only about me, myself, and I. Again, the sense of belonging is almost impossible to re-create.
5.) The only time we have authority to walk away from our forebears our walk away from our children is when our forebears were unfaithful to Christ in their traditions or when our children are unfaithful to Christ and His gracious Law-Word. To have to walk away from either of them for the sake of the King would be gladly done but done as with great tears and heaviness of heart. We would weep over their loss and our loss while rejoicing in gaining the Kingdom.
6.) In order to make this concrete keep in mind that all those “Christians” out there who are decrying Christian Nationalism, or Kinism, or even often-times “Racism” are in point of fact functionally denying the essence of this proverb. Those who deny this have to be considered at the very least “alienists” and at the worse, Enlightenment Liberals or Communists.
